OPINION (AN COLÚN): Ascending a ladder to the beauty above

MANY years ago I attended several cultural events in Dublin Castle all devoted to the lives and teachings of Plato and Socrates. Part of the focus of each of these days (spread over a number of years) was the question, how can we apply the teachings of Socrates / Plato to our own lives?
During the enjoyable morning and afternoon sessions we reflected on many hugely important thoughts from the ancient Greek world, from that wonderful, golden era of human learning and endeavour in the 5th and 4th Centuries BC.
Socrates, as he was presented to us by Plato, was a man who was profoundly focussed on the problems of human existence and positing possible solutions for them.
The Dublin Castle events began with a dramatic presentation on stage in the morning followed by two sessions of reading and discussing Plato in groups. The day concluded with a live debate which was often humorous and entertaining. A different theme would provide a different focus for each day. For example, one year the theme was “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Another theme was “Love and Beauty, as depicted in Plato's dialogue 'Symposium'.”
Famously, Socrates stated, “The unexamined life is not worth living,” and this remains a great challenge to all of us today. His friends profoundly loved him, describing him as “the wisest, most just and best of all men we have ever known.” He devoted the whole of his adult life to philosophic inquiry and it seems to me that a fundamental driving force of his philosophy was the desire to give humanity's spiritual aspect the due prominence that it deserved. To the many around him who seemed to value the material world too much, he exhorted them to pay more attention to the ways of our inner world. To the many around him who prized wealth and prestige above all else, he urged them to place virtue first and foremost. These are teachings which have never gone out of date and are as relevant now in 2026 as they were in the 5th and 4th Centuries BC. They argue that if we place too great a value on the corporeal and the material to the neglect of our better selves then we are doing ourselves no favours because our cup of unhappiness will be fuller than if we approached our lives in a wiser frame of mind. The body grows old and is susceptible to disease. By contrast there is something within us which never grows old but is like an eternal blossom. Socrates believed we should be humble and not overrate our human understanding. Human understanding is always an excellent thing but it is relatively limited when compared with divine wisdom. Bearing this in mind he challenged the “experts” of his day, demonstrating through questioning that their “knowledge” was often inconsistent or falling short. This brave, gadfly attitude meant that many people deeply disliked him. He challenged their conventional modes of thinking and advocated opening our minds and stepping towards true wisdom.
Socrates wrote nothing himself. Most of what we know about him was written by his pupil Plato years after his death. These writings consist of conversations or dialogues between Socrates and others. Socrates usually initiates these dialogues by asking simple questions. His aim is to reveal the truth as he sees it. These dialogues deal with many subjects and are a jewel of immense value in the literature of the Western World. Thankfully all of them have survived. The dialogue called “Symposium” is set in Athens in 416 BC and tells the story of a party which is held by a brilliant new playwright to celebrate his winning of a great drama prize. The leading lights of Athenian society attend. These people are replete with the irreverence, licentiousness and arrogance which is now so fashionable in the great and powerful city. They make speeches on the theme of Love. It is an opportunity to praise the God Eros. There is impressive rhetoric, poetic quotations and mutual flattery. They are having a good time; all except Socrates who does not want to humour them and doesn't wish to echo their fashionable modes of thought. He asks a series of questions which are, in effect, pointing the listeners to the spiritual world within each of them. He explains that his knowledge of Eros and Love was imparted to him by a woman called Diotima and he proceeds to recount the conversation which they had. He discusses the various forms of Love, including how it can be seen in the form of wants and desires. And how it can also ultimately lead to the most sublime heights of spiritual attainment, to where we “become the friend of God and immortal.”
The dialogue contrasts cleverness with truth, worldly love with divine love, and people's actions when they are devoted to higher instincts as opposed to when they are devoted to lower impulses. When propelled by our lower impulses we prize cleverness above truth, and seek to satisfy our earthier instincts. There is of course nothing wrong with sex and nothing wrong with cleverness. Socrates is not a prude. He is a contrarian and a gadfly whose aim is to keep pointing towards the spiritual, no matter the intellectual climate around him. He wishes to highlight the serenity, beauty and poetry of existence. He says that while some people are “pregnant in body” and seek immortality through having children, others are “pregnant in soul” and seek to create wisdom, virtue and art. The ultimate goal is the Form of Beauty itself - gazing upon the absolute, eternal, and unchanging Form of Beauty. He speaks of ascending a ladder of love upwards towards this Form of Beauty. The first rung on the ladder is feeling attracted towards another person. We feel attracted to their face and body. The third rung is valuing the person's inner world over their outer appearance. The 6th and final rung, the summit, is God Himself.

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